Cavaliers Cricket Club, Colchester, Essex, England

1 August 2011

Cavaliers win Colchester Evening League

A bold contingent of Cavaliers, bolstered by a few mercenaries from Boxted (n.b. people that have helped us all season – thanks chaps), successfully saw off the threat of rivals DNE Networks in a quite fiercely contested head to head showdown to deservedly win the Colchester Evening League Division Two title and hence secure promotion. Both teams have suffered two defeats and have 30 points, but Cavaliers take the league title on higher average runs per wicket - plus we twice beat DNA Networks.

Our hiccups came against Williams & Griffin (e.g. Great Horksley & Lexden in disguise) and West Mersea, where we each time we struggled to raise a team. Indeed that has been the story over much of the season. Even for the big final show down with DNA, we could only rustle up ten men. Our thanks go to Jon Rawlings for doing a magnificent job mustering up teams, when the odds of ever getting eleven on the pitch were often stacked against him. Speaking of odds, Phil Wolski did finally win a toss, after 11 consecutive defeats (that’s odds of 1024 to 1!).

Our final fielding performance was perhaps more Jurassic than Classic as Tim Berry pinned down their fluent openers, whilst Phil Wolski took a smart catch (off Ben Moore) to dismiss their danger man. Wherever we put him, it seemed that Kevin Lines was always chasing balls to the boundary in vain. It later took a few pints of Adnams to persuade Kevin not to ‘retire’, and why should he? Kev’s been our top wicket taker having bowled magnificently all season. Younger contributions came from Sean Cobb, who had yet another outstanding day in the field, whilst Dan Skinners direct hit throw to run out the DNA top scorer was balletic (or was it ballistic?). Seven DNA victims in the hutch; Cavaliers justifiably questioned “where had we learned our sledging techniques?”; the home innings closed on 104…….game on!

But the promise of a nail biting finish between two highly competitive teams to decide the league subsided when a superb unbroken stand of 86 between Robbie Mitchell (61) and Rohan Khaira (24) saw us home, nine wickets intact, and with 32 balls to spare. Robbie played some of the best genuine cricket shots of his life, but the game did end in the most bizarre fashion. Needing two to win, an above head high ball sped towards Robbie. “No ball” is clearly cried. Robbie will always claim that he changed his shot on the call, but whoosh & thwack, and the ball flies high to third man – a magnificent catch – fielder throws the ball upwards in delight - and over the boundary! Frankly, nobody is sure if it was a four or six as nobody noticed where it bounced. Sorry Robbie, you only got four!